Posted on 05/06/2024 5:29:09 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
After more than two years of fighting against return-to-office mandates, workers are fed up with their bosses’ inflexible policies and are taking their battle to court.
Zacchery Belval, a designer from Connecticut who has congenital heart disease and severe anxiety, was fired after refusing to return to the office. Despite submitting several doctor’s notices about his medical need to work from home, his employer denied his request citing in-person job duties. Now, he’s suing the company in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut.
“They just said either you come back … or you’re fired,” Belval said. “It was literally screaming matches with management every day saying, ‘Hey, this is about health,’ and management going, ‘We don’t care.’” As companies across the United States increasingly take a hard-line stance on office mandates, an increasing number of workers are elevating their complaints to court and federal labor agencies like the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Workers argue that mandates can be unjust, discriminate against people with disabilities and is a retaliatory action against unionization efforts. Employers that have backtracked from flexible work argue that being in the office is necessary as it improves company culture, collaboration and productivity. The outcomes of these cases could be critical and force employers to reevaluate their policies, some lawyers say.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
However if the company hired them for work at home, the workers may have a case. But if both the worker and/or company can terminate employment at will, there should not be a case.
My company has had a "back to the office" policy for sometime but if you are a productive and valued worker, accomodations are always made...for those who contribute.
Good point...what was their hiring circumstance?
Never will understand the compulsion some people seem to have to “work” at home. I like to separate my work life from home life. If you are at home all day, every day then you might as well be under house arrest.
Getting out in the world with other people is so much better for your mental well being.
Gotta side with employers on this one.
This is more woke bs. He was first hired for an in office job. Either he does what he was hired for or he is fired.
He may have a case, given his health condition. As I understand it from corporate training, Federal law requires reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities.
If the article is correct, it doesn’t appear the company tried to make the accommodation.
“Reasonable accommodations”, once demonstrated, may be hard to smash back into the toothpaste tube.
Yes. Especially for jobs that do not require a physical presence.
They are never going to be able to put that toothpaste back in the tube. Once people saw that they could get their work done just as well from home....that it was not actually necessary to commute into the office and burn a lot of their time and money doing so, they were never going to be forced back to the office like before. Companies can force those on the lowest rungs back in all the time. Any workers who have leverage however, will be able to insist on 100% remote work. Companies which refuse are simply not going to get the skills and experience they want.
That’s already been happening.
I serve on the board of directors of a company that is futilely trying to get people back to the office. At a board meeting last year I was the only one opposed to a “return to office” mandate. To their credit, the other directors saw the wisdom of this and backed down on the mandate.
“Getting out in the world with other people is so much better for your mental well being.”
I agree, and I work at an office 4 days a week, and one day at home. The only thing I like about working at home is that it avoids a time consuming, expensive commute.
It works both ways. I don’t understand people who have to be in an office environment. While being home may as well be house arrest, walking into an office IS house arrest since you surrender much of your personal freedom as soon as you walk through those doors. I also see going to the office as a pay cut, since now your commuting costs are decrementing from your income. Work from home = no commuting costs. For me that is an extra $400-500 in my pocket every month.
Lastly, I commuted for years to my office and missed much of my kids “growing up” while I was stuck in traffic or at work, leaving before they woke up and not getting home till seven at night. They are teens now and I realize that the time I missed with them when they were young, is time I will never get back.
No commute. No boss. Working from home is more of a technicality as you can work from anywhere in the world, including the Philippines or Ecuador and pocket the difference in rent.
Employers destroyed their own credibility on this when they bought into the Branch Covidian nonsense in the first place back in 2020 and sent their employees to work from home.
Give a baby a lollipop.
Then take it away. See how it goes.
It works both ways. If I can work from anywhere, the employees can also be from anywhere. This is a good way to hire third world employees without bringing them in the country.
I suspect that may have been partly the intent when corporations created remote work.
I’ve spent about 1/2 my career working from home. It’s not the house arrest that you make it out to be.
I’d rather work at home than a cube farm or bullpen. Way too many audio distractions.
HPE in the past sold off a lot of office space and said everyone work from home. Then they changed it to everyone must be in an office. Well they got rid of much of the office space. Surprised they did not get sued for that.
Good point about loss of freedoms in the office.
One of the serious downsides (for the employer) of sending people to work from home in the first place is this: By demonstrating that the company could function effectively with people working from home for 2-3 years, they’ve dramatically increased the range of what would be considered a “reasonable accommodation” under the law.
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